Our Lady of the Canines

California Catholic Daily - Our Lady of the Canines?

Our Lady of the Canines?

LA Cathedral adds “Dog Day” to its offering of spiritually uplifting events

The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles has been billed the “people’s cathedral” by Cardinal Roger Mahony. But, it now appears, it’s about to go to the dogs.

Since its dedication in 2001, Los Angeles’ new cathedral has been a community center as well as the foremost place of Catholic worship in the archdiocese. That “tradition” continues this summer with weekly organ recitals on Wednesdays.

Also, from July 11-15 and 19-23, the Shakespeare Festival/LA will hold its summer festival at the cathedral with performances of the Bard’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. Admission is free to the first 300 callers for each performance. Shakespeare Festival/LA requests each attendee to bring one canned food item for donations to its “Food for Thought” program, which, says the Festival, has distributed $1.5 million in food items L.A.’s needy.

The Cathedral Arts Chapel is hosting a contemporary art exhibition through Aug. 24, “The S-Word: The State of ‘Spirituality’ in contemporary Art.” The word “Spirituality” appears in quotes, says a review of the exhibit when it appeared at Los Angeles’ Judson Gallery (Oct. 7, 2006-Jan. 6, 2007), because “religion itself is not spirituality, nor are the artifacts and symbols of religious practice. By depicting devices and texts of such practice, an artist may be only tangentially addressing spirituality, and might actually, in fact, be subverting or satirizing religious belief. A thin gray line encircles the eye of the beholder, separating mortal error from transcendence.”

Two exhibits appearing in “S-Word” at the Judson Gallery underline this. One, by David Ligare, depicts a glass pitcher with grape juice and a stack of white bread sandwiches “on a small cut-away stage or altar by a body of water, visible only at the right edge of the image,” says the review. “It‘s a deftly updated commentary on the eucharist, the body and blood of Christ, and the rendering conveys a presence, even a reverence, that is surprising.” Another is “Kim Dingle’s highly original mixed-media construction, titled ‘My Struggles with Jesus,’” which displays “various dolls in disarray and in the process of unraveling.” This piece “constitutes a devastating moral query,” says the review.

The canine element, however, will appear in “Downtown Dog Day Afternoon,” July 31, in the cathedral plaza. The cathedral website bills this as “a Community Event for Downtown Los Angeles Doggies of ALL Faiths AND their Humans! Bring your four legged friend to the Cathedral for the Downtown Dog Day Afternoon being held on the Cathedral Plaza.”

The event will offer food, drinks (no-host bar), and “a hot dog cart featuring Dodger Dogs” (for humans only). Dogs “must on a leash and social,” says an event advertisement, and “downtowners without dogs [are] welcome too!” The event is “produced” by the Downtown Center Business Improvement District’s “Live, Work and Play Downtown L.A.”

“Co-hosts” for this event will be “Joaquin” Kostelnik and “Buddy” Bastian. “Buddy,” a Golden Retriever, belongs to Hal Bastian, vice president of economic development for the Downtown Center Business Improvement District; “Joaquin,” a Labrador, to Monsignor Kevin Kostelnik, the cathedral’s pastor.

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